Author's Note: This is, in all respects, the only story I have ever written that has been pre-planned in anything other than rough outline. Even my GCSE essays were scruffily worked out at the top of the page before I launched into a metaphorical journey with no idea of where I was actually going.

Anyway, this story was actually spawned from my constant listening of the fabulous Placebo album of the same name (Sleeping With Ghosts, if you have an incredibly short attention span), and each chapter has a themed song which I will write out at the beginning of the chapter to give a sort of feeling (apart from with purely instrumental tracks.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean- that is the property of the anthromorphic mouse. The song lyrics are not mine either, but are performed by Placebo, and owned by their respective record company. No copyright infringement is intended.

Since we're feeling so anaesthetised
In our comfort zone
Reminds me of the second time
That I followed you home
We're running out of alibi's
On the second of May
Reminds me of the summertime
On this winter's day.

See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end.

Every step we took that synchronised
Every broken bone
Reminds me of the second time
That I followed you home
You showered me with lullabies
Had you walking away
Reminds me that it's killing time
On this fateful day.

See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end.

From the time we intercepted
Feels a lot like suicide
Slow and sad, getting sadder
Arise a sitting mine
See you at the bitter end.

I love to see you run around
And I can see you now
Running to me
Arms wide out
See you at the bitter end
Reach inside
Come on just gotta reach inside
Heard your cry
Six months time
Six months time
Prepare the end
See you at the bitter end

-The Bitter End

Chapter One: Comfort Zone

Dong. Dong. Dong.

The dull sound of a large bell filtered into Ragetti's subconscious. Well, it did not so much filter as forcibly charge its way through, completely oblivious to the dreams it was knocking aside in its haste to reach the forefront of the pirate's mind.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

Ragetti groaned and rolled over, his hammock swinging dangerously. The sound was almost there, and it was disturbing him. He felt very warm and comfortable, and had absolutely no intention whatsoever of getting up. Getting up would involve facing the cold, dusky morning and an entire day of scrubbing decks, cleaning canons, twisting ropes and a whole host of other chores that were not particularly appealing at any moment in time, least of all first thing in the morning.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

The other crewmembers were rousing themselves, and he heard a few shuffling about. One pirate — probably Grapple, he was always up early— was actually heard going up the stairs and out the door onto the deck. Ragetti kept his eyes firmly shut, hoping that this was just an unpleasant dream and soon it would shift into something ridiculously abstract like… like being chased by a giant shark wearing Captain Sparrow's hat.

Dong. Dong. Dong.

The monotonous rhythm of the bell was boring so far into Ragetti's mind that he decided the best course of action was to give up. He sat up abruptly and his hammock swung wildly; to avoid being deposited unceremoniously on the wooden floor Ragetti performed an unnatural looking twist and landed on all fours like a cat.

"Don' know how ye can do that so early on," a bleary-eyed Twigg mumbled as Ragetti straightened up, pushed past him to get to the door. Ragetti shrugged self-consciously and pulled his green jacket over his thin shoulders. The skinny man was dressed in an odd collection of garments, featuring a baggy shirt that might once have been maroon but was so faded and darned it was difficult to tell, a jacket that may have been stylish a few years ago and if it were in better condition and some torn breeches that were too short for his lanky legs. Like most pirates on the ship, he habitually went barefoot unless they were going ashore. Ragetti's most distinguishing feature was the wooden eye that was fitted awkwardly into his empty right-socket.

Ragetti watched the other pirates dressing, leaving the room and fumbling about with a detached air; he cared very little for any of these men. They were just there, part of his life but apart from it. Sighing and rubbing his wooden eye Ragetti turned to rouse his one and only friend. Pintel was a very deep sleeper and never heard the bell, so it was always up to Ragetti to wake him. Nobody else on the ship would care enough to try it.

"Pint? Pint, c'mon, we gotta move." Ragetti shook his friend's broad shoulder. Pintel groaned and moved to smack the other pirate's hand away, but Ragetti persisted. "C'mon, Pint! Ever'one else is gone!"

"Wha's new?" grumbled Pintel, sitting up and fixing Ragetti with a bleary stare. The other pirate was short and thickset, with broad shoulders and bowed legs. He was in his mid-thirties, but his thinning grey hair and lined face make him look so much older. He had a broad friendly grin, and sharp, twinkling eyes that creased at the corners when he laughed. Ragetti knew he could be gruff and angry, but he also knew that his friend was ultimately good-natured.

When Pintel had managed to wake up enough to work out how to place his feet in order to walk, the pair of misfits made their way up on deck, where everything was the usual flurry of activity before it settled down into something resembling order and routine. As soon as the two stood on deck the First Mate, Barbossa, came striding up to them with two mops and a bucket. Pintel shut his eyes and tipped his head back as though sending up a silent prayer (or possibly a curse). Ragetti cocked his head on one side and wrinkled his long nose; mopping and scrubbing was their usual chore and sometimes the tall pirate swore that he mopped the wooden decks in his sleep as well. The First Mate, though slightly grizzled in appearance, had an air of superiority about him, and his silver tongue was famed throughout the Caribbean.

"Ready fer yer mornin' stint, lads?" he asked, a sneer pulling at the side of his face, rolling his R's perhaps even more than usual.

Wordlessly, as was their usual way of keeping out of trouble, the two grabbed their mops and Pintel hauled up the bucket, deliberately slopping the water across the deck by way of protest. Together they made their way to the hold, where they usually began the mopping of the entire ship in order to keep out of the way. Had it been almost any other person on board Pintel would probably have had some sarcastic comeback on the tip of his tongue, but with Barbossa the best way around a problem was to keep silent and pretend there wasn't one.

"'E's gonna give ye hell fer spillin' that water," Ragetti said over his shoulder as he began at one side of the hold and worked backwards.

"Bugger it," Pintel growled back, not looking up from where he was mopping against the opposite bulkhead. "Bastard's always lookin' fer a chance ter give me hell."

Ragetti had to admit that this was true. The politics of the Black Pearl were highly fragile, but in his mind it was fairly simple: most the crew either did not like or did not care about Pintel and Ragetti, seeing them as a hindrance unless you could get them to do work the rest of the crew did not want to do. The Bo'sun hated Ragetti even more so than the rest of the crew did, and had beaten him violently on more than one occasion, despite the rules of the Pearl ruling against this — he was not a power to be reckoned with, and always got away with it. Barbossa held a grudge against Pintel for reasons unbeknownst to anybody, and was generally going out of his way in order to blame Pintel for something gone wrong on the ship, even if said pirate had been doing something entirely different at the point. Jack Sparrow, their fearless (and sometimes downright frightening) captain, was above the politics in that he treated each crewmember the same, but Barbossa envied him, and the Bo'sun was exasperated by him. Pintel was never fond of Jack Sparrow for various reasons, and Ragetti thought it was mainly because Pintel was a very practical, down-to-earth person and Jack Sparrow was of an entirely different calibre.

For his part, Ragetti kept away from everyone but Pintel, kept his head down and did as he was told. Life was easier that way.

"Watch it, Rags!" Pintel's gruff voice cut into Ragetti's musings, but it was too late. Ragetti had been mopping backwards, lost in thought, and had failed to notice the wooden pail behind him. His ankle caught the rim and he staggered back, tipping the bucket up and sending water cascading over the floor like a wave in a storm. His bare feet couldn't grip the slippery wood and his legs shot out from underneath him. The young pirate went down in a confusion of flailing arms and legs and landed with a pained yelp.

There was a pause, and Pintel counted down mentally. Three… two… one…

"Me eye!" Ragetti launched himself across the sodden floor in an attempt to catch his wayward prosthetic, but his hampered vision meant that he launched himself in the wrong direction. Pintel, thinking his friend had seen his eye, followed suit. He had barely taken two steps when he stood on something small, round and hard. As soon as the object took his weight it rolled forwards and Pintel was pitched back. He stumbled a few steps back to where he had begun, then slipped on the puddle of water and before he knew what had happened he was sitting splay-legged against the bulkhead with stars bursting in front of his eyes.

"Me eye!" Ragetti cried again, and pounced, trapping the wooden ball in his long-fingered hands. With a triumphant grin, he popped it back in his socket.

There was a long silence when the two inept pirates gazed around at the hold. Puddles rippled innocently across the wooden floor, with the pail upturned in the middle of it. The two mops lay where they had fallen, and the whole thing looked even worse than when they had started off.

Pintel groaned and rubbed his temples furiously. This was not what he needed this early in the morning. In fact, he could list a whole host of things he would rather be doing this early in the morning. One: sleeping. Two: eating…

"Well…" Ragetti began nervously. "L-l-looks like w-we're both fer Hell now."

Pintel threw a mop at him.

Later in the day the mis-matching pair were sitting with their backs against the main mast and were twisting ropes. Ragetti was humming some hapless sea-shanty, which seemed entirely out of place with the sun burning down on their backs and their hands burning and bleeding from the rough yarn of the ropes. Pintel listened to the humming, trying to discern some tune in it, and also tried to ignore the blistering heat on his balding scalp.

They had managed to tidy up the hold enough to escape punishment, though the way the Bo'sun's dark lips had curled signalled that their job had not been satisfactory. There was no doubt that Barbossa would hear of it soon enough. But for now that problem had been pushed to the back of Pintel's mind and he concentrated firmly on the task at hand. His palms were already raw and he saw that Ragetti had smeared blood on his face where he had reached up to rub his eye. Ragetti looked up and saw Pintel watching him; the younger pirate frowned and tried to rub the blood off of his cheek, but succeeded in rubbing only more blood over it. Pintel rolled his eyes but laughed.

"C'mere, yeh stupid dolt." He quickly untied his grey neckerchief and wiped the red stain away from Ragetti's sunken cheek. "There y'are. Don' rub yeh damned eye, 'specially when yer 'ands are bleedin'. An' you can bugger off, an' all!" he added to the monkey sitting nearby watching them. The small animal could have been called adorable by some, but there was a malicious glint in its eyes that hinted to trouble.

"I 'ate that monkey," Ragetti muttered as he hunched over, his head tilted to one side in order to get a good look at the ropes. "'E's always up ter no good."

"Most of us are always up ter no good." Pintel said, shifting over to try and get out of the burning sun but to no avail. "Jus' that monkey's always up ter no good where we're concerned."

Ragetti sighed and squinted skywards, shading his eyes with a long-fingered, bloodstained hand. "Seems like no one on this 'ere ship likes us, 'ey Pint?"

Pintel grinned, his eyes sparkling. "So what? We gets along fine wifout 'em far 's I'm concerned."

For a long, long time Pintel had got along fine without anybody whatsoever. At the tender age of five years he had found himself on the streets, hunkered in corners at night, begging, picking pockets, stealing, anything to keep himself alive. For six years he had lived that life, needing no friends, needing no family. Sometimes he dreamt of faces, and he came to realise that they were his only remaining memories of his lost parents, and he wondered often what had happened to them. In the early mornings, before the streets of Calais had begun to swarm and the only movement were of early fishermen and alley cats, Pintel had lain in doorways frowning up at the dusky sky, trying to remember the faces.

From what his memory could drag up, he looked most like his mother: heftily built with a round, somewhat stern face. He vaguely remembered her having a temper, and he wondered whether he had liked the woman. He could remember nothing of his father's personality, but knew that he had inherited the man's broad, friendly grin. It was when he had fixed these few details firmly in his mind that he vowed to forget about his family. He did not need them; he did not need their characters or their appearances. He was himself, and himself was all he needed. He did not even know his first name, just knew the name of his family. Pintel: a French name, though fairly uncommon, which he had found out mainly from gossiping women on market-day, who concerned themselves more with the families of others than their own.

The port of Calais was a goldmine for the young boy, and he managed to pilfer and raid many unattended ships and boats for food or money. Sometimes a sailor would talk to him, tell him stories. The stories were generally of pirates, of heartless, evil bastards who lived purely for their own gain and did not care who or what they hurt and destroyed in the process of getting it. Pintel wondered whether there was another side to the story, but he never asked. He held his tongue and soon dropped back to looking and listening. He learnt that a young boy who did not draw attention to himself and looked busy was generally ignored, and he could learn much in this way. He got himself a job with an Englishman, helping to dock boats, tie them up and keep them safe for their captain if he did not have enough crew. In the long hours of waiting the man helped Pintel with his fractured English, and by the time he was ten he was speaking fluently- or at least as fluently as most sailors.

When he was eleven, Pintel grew restless of Calais, and yearned for travel. He had spent too long listening to tales and rumours of other lands, and decided to leave. He asked many sailors whether he could tag along, but they all told him no. Some said it more politely than others, but the sentiment was all the same: some ragamuffin street-rat would only get under their feet. Eventually, however, when Pintel was contemplating stowing away in the next boat to leave, a strange man came and asked him his name. Surprised and more than a little suspicious, Pintel gave it to him.

"How would ye like ter join me crew then, Master Pintel?" he had asked in a growling voice. Pintel stared at him for a few moments, not entirely comprehending. Very few sailors took anybody younger than sixteen, unless they were relatives. But Pintel knew that he looked older than he actually was, and he decided this time to play his luck. He grinned and snapped a salute.

"Aye, sir!"

"Good," the man grunted, and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Get on the ship then. Ye got any stuff?" Pintel shook his head. "Right. Off with ye."

Unable to believe his luck, and with no small amount of trepidation, Pintel had sailed off with the man who later introduced himself as Captain Sarendo. Sarendo taught Pintel everything he needed to know about ships and the young boy had the time of his life. The only thing that put a damper on his new style of living was his complete inability to make friends. At first, Pintel was bothered by his social incapacity, and tried desperately to fit in; his efforts were thrown back in his face, however, by the teasing and cruel laughter of the rest of the crew.

Pintel left Sarendo and the crew after two years of taunting. He didn't struggle getting himself onto another ship though; he was a fast learner and Sarendo had taught him well. Soon he found himself sailing on "Sun Arise", a merchant vessel. The crew was larger on that ship, and he found it easy to drift away by himself without drawing attention to his seclusion. One man, a little older than he, attempted conversation once, but by then Pintel was so close that he gave up and left. After that episode Pintel lay awake at night, wondering what was wrong with him and whether he would ever have a friend. 'You're getting along fine without anyone!' he told himself firmly, but a small voice at the back of his mind persisted: 'you're lonely. You're so lonely it hurts.' It was true; it did hurt. It was a constant ache in his chest, but he was used to it, and ignored it. That was the best way.

Pintel frowned to himself, stopping the rhythm of his work and studying the patterns the ropes made, the criss-crossing, twisting plait of the fibres, strengthening and tightening as they were bound together. Had he become stronger since he had met Ragetti? He wasn't sure. He had always been brave, in a fashion; in battle he had never been scared, but he had always backed down against authority, and was always unsure about standing up for himself. Thinking about it, Pintel supposed he was a coward, really.

But if someone tried to bully Ragetti, or hurt him, Pintel would be there to stand up for him, to tell them to leave his mate alone. The crew would laugh then, tell Pintel that there was no way he was pirate material: not him, and not his scrawny shadow. But it was worth it, because since he had met Ragetti that ache in his chest had vanished.

He had been twenty-one when he first met Ragetti, and the lad had been sixteen. He had not been very tall then, but skinny, bordering on gaunt, with a mop of dirty blonde hair and a hapless grin. Pintel remembered when he had first come aboard the Creeping Giant, the ridiculously named schooner; their captain, a tall, weedy man with a penchant for large hats, had ordered Pintel to show the lad the ropes.

It had been an awful beginning: Ragetti had fumbled and messed up, he had forgotten things and had a helpless, pleading expression almost permanently printed on his face. Pintel had snapped at him a few times when his patience had finally broken, but the tirade of apologies that came forth when he did irritated him even more than the young man's slip-ups.

"Sorry, Pintel, sorry…" he would mumble, ducking his head and peering up at him through his unruly fringe, looking very much like a puppy called for a beating. Pintel would roll his eyes and tell him gruffly not to worry, and proceed to show him again.

When they had pulled into a port somewhere, Ragetti had been pop-eyed over the seductive ladies who mingled with the crew in most bars. Pintel had then been very popular with them: he had been stockily built, but not as broad as he ended up, with thick black hair and a neatly trimmed black beard. His blue eyes had a wicked glint in them, and his large smile made the women giggle and simper. Ragetti was always surprised by how well Pintel socialised with the women when his friend struggled to communicate with the rest of the crew. Some of the women had been drawn to Ragetti's obvious shyness and vulnerability, but had soon become bored of him and his nervous stuttering and fidgeting.

Soon Pintel and Ragetti were functioning together. Ragetti did not make as many mistakes, and any he did make Pintel would counter almost immediately. They did all of their work together, even though Ragetti was now perfectly capable of working alone. However, it wasn't until one evening that Pintel thought anything unusual was happening.

"Pint?"

"What, Rags?"

There was a pause as the young man twisted his hands in his lap, staring out across the evening sky. The only sound for a moment was that of the schooner skimming through the ocean's waters.

"We're friends, right, Pint?"

Pintel wasn't sure how to answer that. "I dunno, Rags."

"Well… I fink yer my friend, Pint, but am I your friend?"

"Like I said, Rags, I dunno. Never 'ad a friend, so 'ow am I s'posed ter know?"

Ragetti stared at him, tugging absently at one of the golden rings in his ears. "Never, Pint?"

"Never, Rags."

"Oh." There was another pause, this one longer than the first. Then Ragetti smiled. "Well, I fink I'm yer friend, Pint."

"Awright."

Pintel had sounded off-hand, almost un-caring, but when Ragetti looked away, he smiled.

"What yer smilin' at, Pint?"

"Eh?" Reality smacked Pintel very hard in the face, and it took all of his self-control not to jerk backwards when it did.

"Yer smilin' at nuffin, Pinters. How come?"

"Why not?" Pintel replied, raising his eyebrows. "You don' need a reason ter smile, Rags, so nor do I."

Ragetti, true to form, broke out in a lop-sided grin.

I've spent a while working out and toying with the back-stories of our favourite pirates, but I'm not sure whether there are any major plot-holes in there yet. I hope I did a decent enough job with it, though they will probably be re-written and re-written until they are barely recognisable.

Anyway, please read and review, it would be so appreciated!